Scale Weights

[NCMODELA]

Hi, I took my trailer (2011 Keystone Summerland 26 BH) to the scales today with the TV 2003 Yukon xl. This is what I got, tow vehicle with the TT hooked up was 6360, Both combined is 11720, Trailer was 5560. My GVWR is 7000 so I can make that with the four kids (will be about 6800lbs). My GCWR is around 13,300 lbs, So i am okay there. It took it to the city of raleigh yard waste scales, i have no idea how accurate they are. (but when you add up the TV, TT (6369 +5560 = 11920) but the scales read 11720 when both were on there)

My first question is if you subtract the TV weight with the TT attached from the TV with nothing attached that will give you the tounge weight and you have to add that to the TT weight. If i do that then i get 6240 with 680 as the tounge weight. That is 11% of the trailer weight. This is with the wdh hooked up.

Second question, I hooked up the wdh, and got the front wheels back to normal (only raised 3/4 in when hooked up, but to do this I have 6 links on one side and 7 links on the other, is this okay?

Third question, I tried to level the trailer with the hitch height and It is nose down, it measures 20" in front, and 22" in the back, is this too much of a nose down? I am as high on the hitch that i can be, if i turn it around and be at the lowest then I am still too high and the tt is nose up.

Fourth question. The trailer drove great and the car pulled it great. but it seemed to bounce in the rear end alot when the trailer bounced (more like a flex) this was only on bumpy roads.

Sorry for the long post.

[myredracer]

1/8" is too small to worry about. Some vehicles are not equal on both sides of the fenders. Ours is up to 1/4" out on one side but I ignore it. You must have equal chain links on each side. If you have a 4WD, it's going to be a little uneven because of the weight bias to one side from the transfer case, driveshaft,etc. I think some vehicles are just not made that accurately and you won't find the fender height is even side to side, front and back. Things like springs can sag a little with time. There's simply things that will cause uneven height side to side and you can't worry about it. If you haven't had a wheel alignment done for some time, that's a good thing to do.

If you could post a pic of your hitch, that would possibly help. Are you planning to raise the ball an inch? That will change the geometry a little and affect your setup. It's sounds like your bars at 6 and 6 are what you want to keep them horizontal, but if you haven't, raise the ball an inch and you will find that the head angle and number of chain links will likely change a bit. Chains commonly have 9 links, so at 6, you will have 3 links left over which is good. At 7, you'd have 2 links left over which says things aren't quite set up right.

What you want to do when setting up the ball height on the hitch head is have it 1 inch higher the coupler on the trailer when it is perfectly level (before hooking up). That allows for a bit of settlement in the rear of the TV so that the trailer should end up level.

You should see if your manufacturer for a towing guide and see if they say what the front fenders should settle to. Different makes are a little different. AFAIK, you should never end up lower than the unhitched height. There is a really good sticky in the towing section here and it talks about fender height before and after. It's probably the best write-up around.

[NCMODELA]

I did make sure that the front returned to the unhitched height. This was kind of a struggle, the hitch head cam is on #5 and there are 6 links on the arms, Originally it was 6 on one side and 7 on the other because when I go 6 and 6 the passenger side is 1/16" to 1/8" lower than when started but when it is on 7 and 6 it is 1/4" too high on the passenger side but perfect on drivers side. 7 and 7 I am too high on both sides, I tried changing the cam but at 4 and 6 I am either too long or too short. The bars are horizontal and do not bind at 6 and 6.

I drove it with the 6 and 7 and it seemed to pull to one side, so I went to 6 and 6 and it pulled straight, will 1/16 or 1/8" under matter on the front end? It was weighed with 6 and 6.

Next time i will weigh the axles separatly.

Thanks
Bill

[myredracer]

Going over your numbers again, I have deduced:

Your trailer weighs 5960 lbs.
Your tongue weight is 780 lbs.
The weight of your trailer on the axles is 5180 lbs.
The weight transferred onto your trailer axles is 200 lbs.
The weight transferred onto your TV is 580 lbs.
Your children are young.

Unfortunately you do not have scale weights for the steer and the drive axles separately. The weight onto your trailer seems pretty good and you *may* have appropriate wt. transferred to your front axles. The only way to tell for certain is getting separate axle weights. If the front fenders of your TV have settled down to near the height without trailer hooked up, I am thinking you are pretty close.

You want to end up with your round spring bars close to horizontal so you may want to adjust the number of washers in the shank head as needed. Hard to say how many washers equate to the number of chain links, but I would think it you measure the height of your fenders, you will end up being close. Only other thing that I thought of is that with each pass through the scales, you want to have the same number of people, pets and other stuff in the TV so you are comparing apples to apples.

No one else has jumped in so I hope I am not too seriously wrong!! 🙂
Happy camping.

[NCMODELA]

Ok, I am a little confused, the way I read it was that the TV when the wdh was not hooked up is 6540 trailer 5200, with the wdh hooked up it the tv 6340 and trailer 5380 that means the wdh transferred 200 lbs from the truck back to the trailer.

The tt is 5680 dry, it had full propane tanks, no battery (left it at home by accident) The only thing going into the tv is 2 more kids and DW everything else will be packed into the tt, which is just clothes and chairs, if weight is tight we will be shopping once we get to the campground, which we have done alot before.

Thanks
Bill

[myredracer]

Hi, kudos for making the effort to do all this!

According to Google, the dry weight of your Keystone 26BH is 6117 lbs. Not sure why your scaled wt. is less than this. The actual wt. of a trailer is typically around 1,000 lbs or more than the dry wt. As an example, our trailer is an ultralite, 29' long and has a factory dry wt. of 5237 lbs but has a loaded wt. of 6600 lbs. Some of our options account for part of this. If it hasn't been said previously, you should also have full propane tanks and the battery (or maybe 2 of them) in place along with all your normal cargo (BBQ, chairs, wheel chocks, food, clothing, etc. (and waste/water tanks must be empty). It shouldn't be that your scale weight is less than the dry weight unless your model is different or something is changed or different. Having full propane tanks or not won't make much of a difference on total trailer wt. but will affect the tongue weight.

But - assuming your trailer weight is in fact 5,960 lbs:

Your total trailer wt. is 11,720 - 5760 = 5,960 lbs.

First, your max. available payload is 1240 lbs (7,000 - 5760). Less the tongue wt. of 780 = 460 lbs. That's pretty good but does perhaps seem a bit off compared to other owner's vehicles. But assuming this is correct, you have 460 lbs left for DW, groceries, pets, camping gear and other stuff.

Your are correct, the numbers indicate that 200 lbs is transferred to your TV. This means that 580 lbs is being transferred to the trailer which is waaay too much. You should be looking at the weight on the TV front (steer) axle and rear (drive) axle individually. Weight onto the front axles is the key figure. Can't tell from your numbers so far though. I have read on another popular RV forum that a good distribution of tongue wt. is 25% onto steer axle, 50% onto drive axle and 25% onto trailer. So far, it looks like you have 75% going onto the trailer axles. This will in part explain why the handling does not feel good.

You want to try and get around 200 lbs just onto the front axles. Your bar rating of 1,000 lbs is okay. If round bars, you want to end up with 3 or 4 links left over on the chains. To get this may require some adjustment of the bar angle.

At this point, the wts show that you still need to transfer more weight onto the TV. This is also shown by the measured heights of your front fenders. I would suggest adjusting your bars so that the front fender height is at or near the original unloaded height, but not less. Then make another trip to the scales.

You are getting closer! 🙂

[NCMODELA]

Took it to cat scales,
1st pass with wdh
TV 6340, tt5380, gross 11720

2nd pass w/o wdh
tv 6540, tt 5200, gross 11720

3rd pass tv with full gas tank, me and 2 kids (50lbs)
tv 5760

I thought she was going to split up the front and rear axles but she didn't

From this I have 780 lbs of tounge weight, which is 13% of the total tt weight (5980).

I am under my gvwr of 7000. by about 200 lbs when the other family members are added.

Does this setup sound okay? It drove great except for when a motorhome sped past me at 80mph, then it sucked the trailer around and that sucked. I was not running with a sway control system because I wanted to get the wdh set up correctly and not have the sway control mask any problems.

I have one question though, the gvw with the wdh is 200 lbs less than the one without, can I use the number with the wdh setup because that is how i am going to run?

[myredracer]

totalTotal weight of trailer is really easy. Get weight of just the tow vehicle. No nothing hooked up to hitch - trailer or hitch bars. When weighing the tow vehicle, make sure the gas tank just got filled and I like to weigh with just the driver. That way if you are really tight on the available payload, you can leave DW and kids at home if needed. You can always get DW and kids to weigh themselves and add it on later along with the weight of cargo items. (This is "pass #1)

Then take the TV with trailer and WDH bars hooked up to a scale and weigh the steer axle (front TV axle), drive axle (rear TV axle) and trailer axles all separately. (This is pass #2) Take the 3 weights and add them up. This gives you the total weight of TV + trailer. Then subtract the weight of the TV.

So far, you will thus have the weight of the TV and the total trailer weight.

Then off to the side of the scale, so as not to bother others going through, unhook the bars and put them into the TV. They'll weigh about 20-30 lbs. Then weigh all three axle sets again. (This is pass #3)

To get the tongue weight after this, take the weight of the steer and drive axles on the 3rd pass and add them together. Subtract the original TV weight from this figure. This number is the tongue weight. It is a combination of weight added to steer and drive axles.

The tongue weight is a constant number at this point (unless you change loading of TV or trailer). Take the total trailer weight that you obtained above and subtract the tongue weight. Now you have the weight that is on the trailer axles before the WDH bars are connected and the weight is transferred to the TV.

This is where you need to concentrate! Now you can calculate the weights transferred to steer axle, drive axle and trailer axles. The most important one is the weight you transfer to the steer axle. The rear of the truck will just settle to wherever it does. And whatever the weight transferred to the trailer axles is, you have little control over other than maybe changing the angle of the spring bars. To shift weight between the drive and steer axles is where you play with the number of links left over after hooking up. You may need to change the angle of the shank (and thus spring bars) to be able to get the number of links left over you want.

Sorry, but at this point, I have to run as I am at the cg clubhouse and a band has just started playing loudly. Perhaps someone else can carry on from here.

Hope this helps.

[ChooChooMan74]

NCMODELA wrote:
Ok, I will make a run back to the scales, Is there anyway I can determine the weight of the trailer from the numbers that I posted?

Thanks
Bill

weight of the trailer, yes. True tongue weight, no.

[NCMODELA]

Ok, I will make a run back to the scales, Is there anyway I can determine the weight of the trailer from the numbers that I posted?

Thanks
Bill

[ChooChooMan74]

Some of the tongue weight when the WDH is attached is transferred back to the trailer. That is why you need the third pass.

[NCMODELA]

It is a reese round bar 1000lb bar. The height before hookup was 44 3/4 after hookup 45 1/2 and after wdh 44 3/4 on one side 44 7/8 on the other. The one side has 6 links the other 7. I could probably reduce it to 6 and take up the 1/8 but my arms were getting tired.

I am getting confused on the math. I weighed the truck with trailer attached and it was 6360 lbs, Trailer was 5560 and tv alone was 5680 (with full gas tank and me in it with all the hitch and bars)

So I thought if you take TV (hitched) - TV (unhitched) that gives you the tounge weight that is distributed across the vehicle. You then take that weight and add it to the weight of the trailer (5560) and you have the weight of the trailer. I must be missing something.

Thanks
Bill

[myredracer]

You really need to get your actual tongue weight. Three passes needed as stated above. One with TV only, one with TV + TT and WDH hooked up, and one with TV + TT without WDH hooked up (bars in TV). With this, you can determine not only weight transfer to steer and drive axles, but tongue weight and weight on TT axles (before and after WDH hooked up).

Doing all the math with scale tickets in hand can be confusing, so ask for help if needed. I have been through this but am no expert.

You also should take your scale weight for the TV by itself and subtract it form the GVWR on your door jamb sticker. This will give you your actual available payload weight. Should do with full tank of gas. Can have driver only or family, dog and cargo as long as you take it all into account properly in the end. Important to know so you don't overload the TV. You want to know how many humans and pets and how much cargo you can put in TV with TT hooked up. You might get a bit of a surprise. Don't forget that your hitch receiver will have a max. tongue weight on it too.

Typically you run out of payload before long before you reach the GCWR or hit the front and rear axle ratings on the TV.

If you have a lot of bounce in the rear of your TT, you could have undersized spring bars. Your bars should have the max. tongue weight indicated on them (at least we do). You *could* have a lot more tongue weight than you think and if your bars are in fact undersized, it can result in more rear end bounce in the trailer. Just found this out the hard way ourselves. If your spring bars are too undersized, you will also have problems in "winding" them up enough to transfer weight to the steer axle.

I suspect you are not transferring enough weight to the front of TV. The number of links in your chains depends somewhat on what WDH you have. Perhaps you can say what it is and also post a pic. Links must be the same on both sides. If you find you have to use gorilla force to get the bars onto the snap-up brackets, something is not right. You should be jacking the rear of the TV up a bit with trailer hooked up to make it easier to hook up the chains. Do you know what your particular vehicle should settle back to when the WDH is hooked up? Different makes and models vary and your WDH manufacturer will likely say something on this too.

There is a difference in the number of links between trunnion style and round WDH spring bars, and again info. on your WDH would help. Typically you should have 3 or 4 links left over (hanging loose). Sounds like you have too many links between snap-up brackets and bars.

If you do the three passes you can determine how much weight is transferred to the steer axles, the drive axles and the trailer axles. Greatly assists in setting up the WDH more accurately. You could possibly have to adjust the number of links in the chains or even to have to tilt the bars up or down. You should get the trailer leveled better before you do all this though. Slightly nose down is okay so it sounds like another inch would work.

If you don't have any type of sway control, it is highly recommended, esp. for your trailer size. Various ways to accomplish this along with lower to higher cost.

Once you do get it all "dialed" in, you will find it is really nice to tow!

[skipnchar]

Trailer weight of 6360 rally has zero bearing on your GVWR of 7,000 lb. ONLY the tongue weight counts toward your tow vehicles GVWR. The best way to get an accurate tongue weight is to actually WEIGH the tongue (hitched to nothing and NEVER with the WD system hooked up. If your WD was not used during weighing then you COULD come reasonable close to tongue weight by weighing the hitched rear tow vehicle wheels then unhitching and weigh them again and compute the difference. Just as EASY though when you unhitch, just weigh the tongue.

[ChooChooMan74]

If you have your WDH hooked up, then that won't give you the tongue weight. For travel trailers, to get the tongue weight, you need a 3rd trip across the scales with you WDH torsion bars in the back of the TV.

Equalize both sides of your WDH to the same amount of chains.

Your heights seem ok. It is only about 1 inch off. To correct that, you could get a 1" raised ball from etrailer.

If you drive on certain roads with expansion joints, you could get into a rhythm of bouncing caused porpoising.